Trump’s National Security Plan Only Makes Sense If You See the World As a Zero-Sum Game

In short, the plan is to make America great again.
Photo: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

On Monday, President Donald Trump laid out a national security strategy for a world in which all Republican shibboleths are true: The U.S. economy is fueled by tax cuts for the wealthy, drilling in the Arctic will solve our energy problems forever, and building a 2,000-mile wall is a cost-effective and worthwhile solution to the problem of “bad people” entering the country. If you believe all this, you likely thought Monday’s speech was pretty good.

It also listed some grandiose firsts that Trump had no business claiming credit for, like “for the first time, American strategy recognizes that economic security is national security,” and “for the first time ever, American strategy now includes a serious plan to defend our homeland.” Again, this makes sense if you believe any plan to defend our homeland that does not include a massive border wall and an inhumane approach to immigration enforcement is fundamentally unserious. Trump also asserted that his Afghanistan strategy (refusing to communicate a plan and letting the generals handle it) is working, even though ISIS is now carrying out more terrorist activity in Afghanistan and Pakistan, after its much-touted defeats in Iraq and Syria.

Indeed, much of this strategy is merely a rehash of Trump’s core campaign promises: Get tough on immigration, crack down on Islamism, close the border. In Trump’s rhetoric, the failure of past administrations to do these supposedly simple things is the cause of most of our present ills, whereas Trump’s having the courage to finally do them will make us safe and prosperous — great again, as it were. And the only reason everything isn’t perfect yet is that his predecessors were so catastrophically wrong about everything that it’s taking a little time. That was the essence of Monday’s message.

Perhaps that’s why, like so many of Trump’s appearances, this felt at times more like a campaign speech than a policy address. There was more about the vision than there was about how we’re going to get there. The biggest national security challenges of the day — North Korea, Iran, Russia, China — merited only brief mentions. His invocation of “unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft” sounded like an oblique reference to China, but it was not clear what his actual policy response to those practices would be.

Resurrecting the Reaganesque motto “peace through strength,” Trump proposed a “total modernization” of the armed forces, and “massively building up our military, which has the fundamental side benefit of creating millions and millions of jobs,” while also “streamlining acquisition” and “eliminating bloated bureaucracy,” as though eliminating red tape could generate the trillions of dollars needed to achieve a “massive” buildup of the already massive U.S. military. Meanwhile, Trump seems to be calling for a kind of military expansion-as-stimulus/make-work program, the wisdom and effectiveness of which are debatable at best, especially compared to other forms of economic stimulus.

That’s all on top of the $1 trillion dollars Trump is proposing to spend on the “complete rebuilding of American infrastructure” that he called for on Monday — which admittedly, we could use, but not in the corrupt, privatized way his administration intends to go about it. Where on earth is Trump going to get the money for these things? (“By robbing Social Security and Medicare!” cries Paul Ryan from the wings.)

The strategy document itself, of course, gets into more detail, painting what foreign policy analyst Daniel DePetris describes at the American Conservative as “almost Hobbesian … a picture of a world in black-and-white, a sometimes harsh and unforgiving place where nations compete with one another for a bigger piece of the global pie.” Here is a recurring theme for Trump: The word “compete” or “competition” appears four times in the speech (73 times in the strategy); “China,” just once (23 times in the strategy). Yet again, Trump and his administration belie a strikingly zero-sum worldview, in which all deals have winners and losers, and everyone is looking out to screw over the other guy.

To some extent, they’re not wrong. The strategy characterizes China and Russia as “revisionist powers” seeking not to participate in the global order established by the neoliberal consensus after the Cold War but rather to undermine it for their own nationalist or ideological ends. This is a dark but not inaccurate description of these countries and their behavior. The strategy acknowledges that “actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies,” but glides over the fact that one of these democracies is our own. At least in its diagnosis of the world’s ills today, the strategy is not as bonkers as it might be.

The trouble is in its solutions. Part of the administration’s approach to the world as the White House sees it is to negotiate with our rivals, but only from a position of overwhelming military superiority. Its military strategy is rooted in “overmatch” — i.e., overkill: “We must convince adversaries that we can and will defeat them — not just punish them if they attack the United States.” This is the solution to terrorism — but were we not “overmatched” against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001? — as well as to getting our adversaries to behave as we’d like. Also, as anyone who bought an F-35 knows, sometimes pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into a military expense is a bridge to nowhere.

Over and over again, the picture emerges of a strategy that makes perfect sense in a world of right-wing assumptions: Russia and China only respond to demonstrations of strength, international terrorism requires an overwhelming military response abroad and a curtailing of civil liberties at home, immigration is bad, etc.

On issues of supposedly existential importance, such as North Korea, there’s not much new. At least for now, the strategy does not entertain anything more muscular than bulking up missile defenses in East Asia and remaining ready to respond with overwhelming force to any military provocation. Iran is subject to extensive abuse, with the strategy referring repeatedly to its support for terrorist groups in the Middle East, but little detail is given on how the administration intends to respond to it, beyond, “We will work with partners to neutralize Iran’s malign activities in the region.”

Coming from this administration, that kind of bland, boilerplate language is almost reassuring — except of course, that we don’t know exactly what “working with partners” means, especially when things don’t go according to plan. DePetris’s conclusion is that we should expect the strategy “to remain relevant up to and until an actual crisis strikes.” That sounds about right.

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THE FEED

10:46 a.m.

The immigration hardliners’ takeover continues, but this move might tick off McConnell

Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the immigration hard-liner who was expected to be President Trump’s pick to coordinate immigration policy, will instead be chosen to take over for the embattled official who has overseen the legal immigration system, according to two people briefed on the situation.

The official, L. Francis Cissna, whose role as the head of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has included overseeing a visa system that many White House aides view as broken, has submitted to pressure to step down, the two people said.

Mr. Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general, is expected to be tapped to replace Mr. Cissna, the two people said. Mr. Trump had asked Mr. Cuccinelli in recent days to help coordinate policy across agencies, akin to the “immigration czar” job that the president has considered creating for months. The move startled officials at the White House and at the Department of Homeland Security, where one West Wing official said Mr. Cuccinelli would work.

For now, he will be used to move out Mr. Cissna, the people familiar with the move said. But Mr. Cissna, who was supported by a number of immigration restrictionists, held a Senate-confirmed role. And people close to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who has been a target of Mr. Cuccinelli’s in the past, said that the former attorney general’s chances of being confirmed were close to zero, creating immediate questions about the next steps in the process.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked part of President Trump’s plan to build a wall along the southern border with money Congress never appropriated for that purpose. …

Gilliam wrote that the government’s position “that when Congress declines the Executive’s request to appropriate funds, the Executive may simply find a way to spend those funds ‘without Congress’ does not square with fundamental separation of powers principles dating back to the earliest days of our Republic.”

The law the administration invoked to shift funds allows transfers for “unforeseen” events. Gilliam said the government’s claim that wall construction was “unforeseen” “cannot logically be squared” with Trump’s many demands for funding dating back to early 2018 and even in the campaign. … About $1 billion has been moved from military pay and pension accounts, transfers that Gilliam ruled against Friday, but no money has been transferred from the emergency military construction fund for which the president declared a state of emergency in February.

Facebook remains very concerned about false information circulating on the platform

Facebook says it will continue to host a video of Nancy Pelosi that has been edited to give the impression that the Democratic House Speaker is drunk or unwell, in the latest incident highlighting its struggle to deal with disinformation.

The viral clip shows Pelosi – who has publicly angered Donald Trump in recent days – speaking at an event, but it has been slowed down to give the impression she is slurring her words.

Trump v Pelosi: how a ‘stable genius’ president met his match Read more

… Despite the apparently malicious intent of the video’s creator, Facebook has said it will only downgrade its visibility in users’ newsfeeds and attach a link to a third-party fact checking site pointing out that the clip is misleading. As a result, although it is less likely to be seen by accident, the doctored video will continue to rack up views.

Dating as far back as the Pentagon Papers case and beyond, journalists have been receiving and reporting on information that the government deemed classified. Wrongdoing and abuse of power were exposed. With the new indictment of Julian Assange, the government is advancing a legal argument that places such important work in jeopardy and undermines the very purpose of the First Amendment. The administration has gone from denigrating journalists as “enemies of the people” to now criminalizing common practices in journalism that have long served the public interest. Meantime, government officials continue to engage in a decades-long practice of overclassifying information, often for reasons that have nothing to do with national security and a lot to do with shielding themselves from the constitutionally protected scrutiny of the press.

Rep. Chip Roy became the man who delayed $19.1 billion in disaster aid to communities throughout the country on Friday.

House leaders had planned to pass a multibillion-dollar disaster assistance measure by unanimous consent, but the Texas Republican objected on the floor.

Roy took issue with passing the measure without a roll call vote. He also complained that the legislation lacks offsets to prevent it from driving up the deficit and that congressional leaders left off billions of dollars in emergency funding President Donald Trump seeks for handling the inflow of immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Nadler reassures people that he’s ok after appearing to pass out at event

House Judiciary Chairman Nadler: “Appreciate everyone’s concern. Was very warm in the room this morning, was obviously dehydrated and felt a bit ill. Glad to receive fluids and am feeling much better. Thank you for your thoughts.”

Sen. Menendez says the Trump admin has “formally informed Congress that it is invoking an obscure provision of the Arms Export Control Act to eliminate the statutorily-required Congressional review of the sales of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others.”

Scary moment at this press conference now, @RepJerryNadler appears to be dehydrated, perhaps low sugar as the conference was underway. They are clearing the room so he can get medical assistance. He’s conscious, drinking water and has just been fed an orange

Conflicting so obviously with Roe V. Wade, the law is likely to be blocked

Planned Parenthood and the Alabama Women’s Center on Friday filed suit against the state of Alabama to block the most restrictive abortion law in the nation.

The near-total ban, signed by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on May 15, would criminalize abortion in almost all circumstances — including cases of rape and incest — and punish doctors with up to 99 years in prison. Without any challenges, the law was set to go into effect in as soon as six months.

The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, sets off a chain of events that both sides say is likely to lead to a years-long court battle. State lawmakers have said they passed the law specifically to bring the case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, which they see as having the most antiabortion bench in decades. The bill was designed to challenge the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by arguing that a fetus is a person and is therefore due full rights.

That provision said patients cannot be turned away because they are transgender, nor can they be denied coverage if they need a service that’s related to their transgender status.

The announcement follows a series of moves that bolster efforts by religious conservatives to narrowly define gender and gender protections. Earlier this month, the administration finalized rules making it easier for health workers and institutions to deny treatment to people if it would violate their religious or moral beliefs.

Prominent publishers are very worried about the Julian Assange espionage case

NYT’s Dean Baquet: “Obtaining & publishing information that the government would prefer to keep secret is vital to journalism & democracy. The new indictment is a deeply troubling step toward giving the government greater control over what Americans are allowed to know.”

Hannity has an hour-long prime time show, no editorial supervision, and the ear of the president. What could go wrong?

… Hannity, who consistently dominates the ratings across all cable news outlets, brazenly ignores … [Fox’s news standards]. And news-side employees who spoke to The Daily Beast believe it’s because no one at the network is willing to control the ratings-leading host.

A blaring example of that is Hannity’s treatment of claims from guests whose dubious “reporting” would never pass muster on Fox’s hard news shows. The most commonly cited example of this is Trump-boosting Fox News contributor Sara Carter, whose news credibility is so questionable that, as Mediaite reported in March, Fox News executives allegedly told Hannity to stop calling her an “investigative reporter” on his show.

“Fox News executives have asked Hannity to stop using this title on the grounds that Carter’s reporting is not vetted, and passes none of the network’s editorial guidelines,” the media news site reported. And even without any such dictate, Hannity’s hyping of “reporters” who don’t meet Fox’s news standards would be considered troublesome at any mainstream outlet.

Nevertheless, Hannity has persisted.

In fact, according to a review of Fox News transcripts, he has only gotten more defiant since he was reportedly scolded by executives. This year, Hannity has referred to Carter as an “investigative reporter” at least 18 times, two-thirds of which came after he was told to stop. In several of those instances, Hannity even slapped a network-wide stamp of approval on Carter, calling her a “Fox News investigative reporter.”